


"Voluntary Exile"

by TheCreatorCrew



Series: Gods Should Be Worshipped [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Filler Content, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Reminiscing, no beta we die like tubbo in the festival, not really shipping but it's implied, p a i n, very angst heavy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28392909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCreatorCrew/pseuds/TheCreatorCrew
Summary: Dream is alone in exile. At least he has his memories to escape to.---This is part of a larger series, but you can read this without context if you wanted to.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Floris | Fundy, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Gods Should Be Worshipped [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038252
Comments: 2
Kudos: 103





	"Voluntary Exile"

**Author's Note:**

> Some filler angst for the soul. The title means nothing, don't look too deep into it I swear trust me ;)))

Alone. Cold. Empty.

A couple of words that came to mind when Dream thought about his current predicament.

He was used to the feeling of crushing silence and emptiness where there should be a person, but  _ this _ was an entirely different beast and it was taking him to fully grasp the situation and his overwhelming emotions.

Usually, when he was alone like this,  _ someone _ left him for good. He- They were simply gone, almost impossible to get in touch with at all. Dream could handle that, knowing there was nothing he could do.

This was different.

Now all he had to do was reach out into the unknown, call into the darkness and hope for a response. He  _ knew _ there were people who would answer him, pulling him away from the cold sadness and increasingly concerning thoughts, but he couldn’t. Morally, that was.

It hurt.

His feelings about the arrangement changed day by day, rapidly switching between content about knowing they were relatively safe from him and…

“Not today,” he muttered, rubbing his throat. His voice was raspy and hoarse, a combination of multiple factors, including the fact that he hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences for weeks. That was the reason he went with instead of the  _ painfully obvious _ one. “Not today…”

Dream took up pressing flowers. It was good nobody was there to question how he attained them, considering there were no variants of the ones he used anywhere in the area.

He also started writing, aggressively. Wilbur once said he did it to relieve stress, documenting all the happy things that happened to him so he could go back to them whenever he was sad. Since it was a habit he picked up as a kid, he was able to show Dream all of his old journals. 

Of course, Dream no longer had any happy moments to write about, as depressing as that was. He tried writing past ones, but most escaped him as soon as he sat in his desk’s chair to write.

Instead, he wrote letters.

Letters to everyone he could think of, they got a letter. It was hard the first few attempts, but once he realised that they would never be sent or seen by anyone besides himself, it was infinitely easier.

They were a way he could express his emotions freely, vent all of the things he would never say to a person’s face in the form of words. Wilbur was right, it was strangely cathartic.

The one he was currently writing was to Fundy- most were, if he was being honest, considering he wanted to say the most to him- it was a simple reassurance, telling the man that he was okay and he didn’t need to worry.

_ My dearest beloved, you mustn’t fret over my current state. I am in perfect health and my current living situation is good. I hope you yourself are doing well, and I can’t wait to  _ **_kill_ ** _ have you in my arms again. _

His mouth ran dry. He stared dumbly at the paper for a few seconds too long before reaching over the paper to grab his canister of dyed ink, blotting the white substance over the stray word until it was covered to his satisfaction.

And he kept writing. He had grown used to the menacing words appearing in places he didn’t place them, finding more and more in his old writings, although less common than now. 

It was a little more concerning how his thoughts wandered so easily, one second he might be thinking about watering his garden, the next a graphic image of himself stabbing Tubbo would imprint itself in his brain, ruining the rest of a normally very fine day. The disturbing pictures usually sent him to the floor, the very idea of hurting anyone he cared about was enough to make him tear up.

He always had those problems, just… lesser so. More subtle. Only appearing when he lost control of his emotions, easily reigned in once he regained composure.

Now they just seemed to want him to suffer.

Dream never wrote to George. He tried, truly, but he could never get more than a few paragraphs in before the flowers flared up and blood was spilled onto the crisp parchment. 

The flowers.

Oh gods, the flowers.

They were spreading. A week into his exile, he kept feeling  _ something _ in his mouth, near the back bottom row. Upon checking the mirror, he realised a couple of daisies were growing where one of his teeth should’ve been but was missing due to….

Due to what?

He slowly shook his head, blinking. What was he thinking about again?

_ Flowers. Right. What about them? _ He was probably planning on pressing them, having run out. Since he liked slipping some into the envelopes his letters resided in, he needed more.  _ Yes, that was it. _

He kept a vase where the flowers that survived any coughing fits and weren’t too mangled resided, realising most of them were in perfect shape. A few yellow roses mocked him, dragging of memories of thorns and desperate screams and pleads for someone,  _ anyone _ , to have mercy on him back to him.

_ Nobody did _ .

A copy of  _ The Art of War _ watched him as he prepped the flowers for pressing, chuckling lightly when inserting them between the pages of said book. He didn’t exactly remember why he started using that one, although it probably had something to do with the slight feeling of nostalgia he got just looking at the book. Techno had copies upon copies of the thing, due to the fact that Dream used to scribble in them as an act of small revenge whenever he was pissed off.

His heart wilted a bit with the memories. It was a simpler time, one where it was just him and Techno against the world.

How he missed that.

While he waited for the flowers, he sat down, determined to take his mind off of  _ everything _ . 

The art of writing was not something he particularly excelled at. Sure, he could string sentences together, but they were mostly to the point and blunt. Techno used to scold him for his lacklustre storytelling skills whenever he tried to tell a story to the former.

_ No more Techno _ .  _ I don’t need him. _

He gave up on writing actual stories, ripping out the few pages of what he had in the journal. He couldn’t keep a dream journal since he refused to sleep due to  _ it _ , and normally his days were so boring that writing any of it down would be pointless.

But for right now, he would try to write about his memories, like how Wilbur told him to. 

One immediately came to mind when he thought of happier times, before all the war drama but after Technoblade- It was one he held close, near and dear to his heart.

George and Sapnap were challenging each other to duels, starting as a joke but growing more and more competitive. They were trying to drag Ant and Bad into it, repeatedly saying it would “more of a test of skill if they had teammates”. It didn’t even make sense, but they stuck by that logic.

Dream sat on a stone wall, reading a book and watching out of the corner of his eye to make sure things didn’t get too rough. While the other four accepted him into their group of friends, he still was a bit of an outcast at the time. Of course, he joined in discussions and things along those lines, but he was a man of few words, preferring to hang back and watch events unfold.

The others were surprisingly okay with his presence, allowing him into their private lives and actively engaging in conversation with him. They respected his strange behaviour, usually leaving him to his own devices whenever they had moments like these.

But something shifted that day. Maybe the stars aligned, maybe someone finally smiled upon Dream and let him have something worth a damn, or maybe he was just lucky. Whatever the reason, he was so glad it happened.

George invited him to spar.

He remembered being incredibly shocked, making an involuntary sound of surprise. But  _ they  _ seemed even more shocked than he was when he accepted, taking the hand George offered.

Later Ant admitted they all assumed he was above their silly disputes and figured including him would only serve to annoy him or make him think less of them. It was strange thinking that retroactively, especially when he was often a source of the conflict; he definitely lost some of his mysterious energy after being initiated. 

While the spars were nothing special, Dream decimating the rest as expected, it helped change the standard that they had previously set. He was invited to join in more, allowing him to integrate even further into their group.

It also helped start Sapnap’s addiction to trying to beat him.

He always was like that, challenging Dream to matches whenever possible. Although he did that with most people and seemed to find it more fun whenever he won, which was not something Dream let happen often. 

Their sparring match changed that.

_ “You fought well,” Dream smiled underneath the mask, brushing off the dust from his cloak while sheathing his sword. Sapnap perked up from his angry mutters, brightening slightly.  _

_ “Really?” _

_ He nodded, striding over to pat the man on the back. “Of course, I wouldn’t lie about that.” _

From then on, Sapnap insisted on sparring- or at least practising- nearly every day. He loved being praised for his skills, shamelessly fishing for compliments whenever possible. It only added to his already-competitive nature, challenging the others randomly to quickly do random tasks.

_ Who can jump three times the fastest! _

_ Who can craft a sword the fastest! _

_ Who can get to the other tree the fastest! _

Bad usually got all the crafting ones, considering he always seemed to have the necessary items on him. Dream excelled at the movement ones, already being pretty fast. George simply didn’t care enough to try, which was annoying since Ant took the opportunity to win in his absence.

There was a couple of challenges that stood out in his mind and always made him chuckle. He wasn’t even there for them, piecing together what happened from three different frantic recounts.

_ “Who can….” Sapnap paused, thinking for a few moments. “... get on a crafting table the fastest!” _

_ George laughed. “That’s such a dumb challenge, Sapnap.” _

_ “It’s easy so you can win it!” Ant chimed in, shoving him to the closest crafting table. “Come on, just do it.” _

_ Bad and Dream were downstairs at the time, challenging each other to who could get the most EXP in a minute. George hesitated, before gingerly sitting onto of the table. _

_ “There we go, I knew you could do it!” Sapnap snickered, clapping. Ant joined it, tail flickering with excitement. The brunette rolled his eyes, drumming on his thighs. _

_ Sapnap flicked him after a few minutes, laughing slightly. “George, I need to craft something,” he shook the other male. “Get off!” _

_ The latter stood, flipping him off. “No.” _

_ Apparently, it just so happened to be that while Sapnap was trying to nudge George off, Ant just happened to be at the perfect perspective to perceive the situation as… well, something rather dirty. _

Dream wheezed slightly at the memory. Ant, Sapnap, and George all ran downstairs whilst he and Bad were arguing about whether or not hell was a bad word, all of them yelling over each other about what happened upstairs. Needless to say, complete and utter chaos.

He gently set down the quill, resting his chin in his hands. At least he wrote something down, but now his eyes were all teary and the pages were blurring. 

The light pattering of rain against his window distracted him from the heartache, dragging him from his melancholy thoughts. 

“Perhaps I should go to the beach tomorrow,” he quietly mused. “That would be a nice break.”

Anything to distract himself from the urge to go back. He couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t. 

_ To my dearest, George,  _

_ … It hurts. _

The bitter taste of pollen rose in his mouth, a weary smile spreading across his face. He deserved the pain, deserved all of it. Left everyone who cared about him in a futile attempt to protect them.

Would it all be in vain?

He could only hope not.

**Author's Note:**

> Figured that having some stuff about Dream's exile would be nice character development. Possible twoshot if I get anymore ideas


End file.
